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The Supreme Court Breakfast Table

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Dahlia Lithwick
to: Walter Dellinger, Jack Goldsmith, and Cliff Sloan

A Shooting Range Next to the Supreme Court Gift Shop?

Posted Friday, June 27, 2008, at 5:38 PM ET

Dear Jack and Walter and Cliff:

Walter, your last post really drove home the reality that we are going to be covering gun cases at the Supreme Court for years to come, aren't we? Perhaps in much the same way the justices used to screen porn for First Amendment purposes, they can now finally build that little shooting range next to the gift shop. Wait, no. The high court is actually one of the few places in America where you still can't carry a gun. Well that's sure lucky.

I guess the consensus from today's op-eds and my inbox is that the Heller decision is basically principled (as Cliff has urged) and really quite limited (as everyone but Walter insists). And that maybe a robust reading of the Second Amendment is ultimately a good thing for progressives, and maybe all that language about militias really was just dicta, and maybe the whole fight for gun control is just too totally '90s. Clearly there is nobody more confused about his own love-hate relationship with the American gun than Sen. Barack Obama, whose constitutional koan yesterday is incomprehensible on virtually every level: "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures." Maybe it's not an accident that liberals found it so easy to capitulate on the issue of guns. You can almost hear the relief in our voices today: Could we be more tough and manly?

Walter and Jack and Cliff, I know that you are all busy, and I also realize that banging out rough first impressions of 300-page opinions for publication is hardly an exercise with which most lawyers feel totally comfortable. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and insights with us this week. One of my favorite Slate readers sent a note yesterday conveying his thanks that "[i]n an election year and a journalistic climate where people shout rather than debate, how remarkable to have a respectful debate." I enthusiastically concur. See you 'round the court.

Fondly,
Dahlia

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Dahlia Lithwick
to: Walter Dellinger, Jack Goldsmith, and Cliff Sloan

A Shooting Range Next to the Supreme Court Gift Shop?

Posted Friday, June 27, 2008, at 5:38 PM ET
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Walter Dellinger is an attorney in Washington, D.C. and the Douglas B. Maggs professor of law at Duke. Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Terror Presidency, worked in the Bush administration from 2002 to 2004 and is a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor. Cliff Sloan is an attorney in Washington, D.C.
Photograph of the Supreme Court by Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte. Entry 16: Photograph of handguns by Rick Gershon/Getty Images.
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